


October 31, 1995

by DarlaBlack



Series: Ficlets & Prompt Responses [13]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early in Canon, F/M, Ficlet, some slow realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlaBlack/pseuds/DarlaBlack
Summary: He notices her.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Ficlets & Prompt Responses [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1059317
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	October 31, 1995

**Author's Note:**

> This is from Halloween, but I forgot to post it! It's a short little nothing, just a brief moment in time.

It’s their third year working together, and Halloween is on a Tuesday. There’s a mug shaped like an alien head, full of tootsie rolls, on his desk, but no other nods to the season. Fox Mulder has just turned thirty-four and there are only two children in his building. He will get home in time to hand them full-sized candy bars, and then he will watch _The Blob_ on cable with the rest of last night’s Chinese takeout.

He watches his partner rub her lower lip with the tip of her thumb, wonders how her lipstick stays so red this late in the day. He wonders if she has trick-or-treaters too.

It occurs to him how alone they both are, and the thought comes not sadly, not regretfully, but curiously, at a distance from his own sense of loss or need. They pass so much time this way: together and alone at once, keeping their domestic selves tucked quietly somewhere else. He wonders what Scully wore the last time she put on a Halloween costume. Cat? Witch? Did she just wear scrubs with an ironic smile and say _doctor_?

She must sense his looking, because her eyes tip up from her paperwork to meet his. “Mulder?” The eyebrows. “What’s up?”

He shrugs with half a smile.

She angles her head further, persistent.

“It’s Halloween,” he says.

She frowns. “Oh.”

Will she watch _The Exorcist_ tonight? She told him once that it was her favorite movie. Does she cook real dinners sometimes? Does she put on sweats when she gets home? A strange notion settles over him. He is _noticing_ her, he realizes. He is _curious_. He is wondering what she would look like in a costume, after a beer, holding a bucket of candy, while an old horror movie plays somewhere nearby. Is that some kind of _date_ that he’s imagining? Some domestic scene where they’re together for some reason?

“Well,” she says, “Happy Halloween?”

Mulder smiles, nods, picks up his pencil again. “Happy Halloween.”


End file.
